What a Lovely Way to Burn
by InfinityxDanvers
Summary: You're better with sharp teeth waiting for me. You're better with fight to excite me. [Max Hardy/Luke Gray]


**A/N: For the feisty relationship that ended too soon.**

* * *

Timing had become something out of his understanding range.

The lack of illumination tricked his senses as the metal bars filled his sight each centimeter more per day until his pupil become iron too. It's not a surprise that the mortified silence he grew to adapt seemed now attached to his very bones, inseparable. The damped walls he knew all too well. Sometimes there's a metal bump that rises from his pulse and as he moves, Luke figures, it sounds frivolously familiar.

So he thinks it has been long enough.

The wounds painting the corner of his eyes and cheek and the yellow colored bruise near his nose had almost faded. At least, he doesn't feel it anymore. He blinks and it doesn't hurt. His mouth opens and he doesn't hiss. His dark hair is longer too, making a ridiculous curve at the end of his nape since he still pulls it back to clear his sight. The length, Luke doesn't quite relish. The stubble on his face, though, he truly loathes it. It itches and he hates it. The guards, every once in a while, bring a change of laundered clothing — the same horrific tangerine jumpsuit with a strong and nauseous scent of soap.

He thinks is not official.

The organization has a strong protocol, a coda, with centuries in the making, which is not to be changed. Things run different on his side as the installation that came after Manhattan Memorial is odd enough for Luke to raise an eyebrow. He's always being watched. Nurses who used to check the IV jutting from his arm were always frisked before being allowed to touch him. Doses and extra doses of sedative invalidated a set of proper actions, permitting only for the credential to let their names known.

Greeting, he used to treat them to a smile that waved shivers in their backbone, he realized quickly. A hesitation followed by a clenched jaw.

He liked it.

But the facility was left behind as the badges wearing armed men set up his transportation. He's cuffed from head to toe and the truck doesn't let him see a palm. His incarceration was not public. They lock him up and he doesn't know where.

The air is unbearable and exorbitant. He thinks about his family too much, too much, and he knows that maybe, and if, if, if—

Everyday what hauls him outwards is also what anchors him down.

* * *

The first time blood sweeps to his hand, he's enraptured. The walls sing him a song and he drinks his own mess. There's a feeble cry. There's a final gasp. There's a smooth and inviting touch on his shoulder.

His mother leans and says, "Family, Luke, and nothing else but."

He cleans the weapon. (But not his hands. Not the sensation. Not really. Not that)

He nods.

* * *

A promise is to be kept and he doesn't know any other way.

He had promised them and he doesn't know any other form.

He had promised himself and he'd live by that.

* * *

His cell is painted with symmetrical shadows around the bend and his eyes memorized every pattern. He senses it before he hears it. When the guard approaches, Luke is facing the man, hands behind his back.

He doesn't flinch as the nurses do and Luke wonders about the reassurance a gun held by the waist can bring on. If he could, Luke would scowl. If he could, the man's trachea would be lying open. But you shall work with possibilities and never against them. He catches something on his esophagus and swallows it back.

Methodical tactics are limited while anticipation can only lead you so far. So many rules, his mother had said. She had taught her sons and daughters as her oath. Luke discovered he likes knives better — the strength comes from your fist, the precision comes from your hand and the art comes from your fingers. It never stops to amaze him, how lusciously the blade could reach the meat, the tissues, the liver and pulled out all the rest with it. He used to handle the speed, but there's always a ripping and he has his canvas.

There are no illusions.

It's personal, honest, and if connection is not the main point, it's worthless.

The guard tells him to approximate and put his hands together so he could cuff the prisoner. Luke obeys. Through his long orange sleeves, he still feels the cold element and the bad smell that comes with it — as if the cubic room's wasn't already bad by the bricks.

The officer says, "There's someone here to see you," and the monotony in his tongue tastes like... Nothing. Luke faces the man again as he speaks in the radio. Ten seconds after, the metal bars disappear by concrete and Luke meets a straight corridor. That's the first time he leaves the chamber since, since— long time ago.

They reach a white room and everything there burns his eyes. It's bigger than what he's used to with a table that ensures a uniform distance between him and the visitor.

_Still not safe enough_, his mind twists and there's a phantom rawness on his muscles.

_Too long too long too—_

He's anchored to a chair away from the door and so the guard leaves. There is one camera on the top right and he knows he should expect more authorities to be spilled on, acidly. He hasn't said a whole sentence since Ryan Hardy tried to make his way in order to catch The Huntsman. Sometimes to win over your contestant you need to gather all the variables; to show there's a value in you, resources that may tease the opponent. There are parts that can be your own, and surfaces that you stain. And here's the thing about rivalry: the glue is thick because both sides need something from each other.

So he waits. He waits for them to beg his help.

He knows they must.

He doesn't bother with the elapse of tick-tocks. Time wasn't something to rely. He adjusted his back on the hard chair and when the doorknob flutters, his features showed no failure.

Max Hardy, part to NYPD and later Intel Division, he summons even serial numbers, entered the room and the sweep of her gaze, which scanned until his inside flesh, had an aroused effect. For a strange reason, he envisioned excitement. The corners of his mouth trembled lightly and because of the fire within her he leans forward appreciating the work it did to her features.

"Oh," he says and slowly his tongue meets his teeth. "Hello."

She doesn't respond right away and her thoughts are like smoke on the room. She gulps down. He asks himself if she's gathering guts to come and sit. If is hard to be faced. If she had played that moment over and over in her petty head. If perhaps the thought of watching the prey gnawing and twisting is better tasted long-term.

How easy would it feel? How—

He asks himself if the bullet she'd use was shaped especially for him.

Fear and paranoia are kept to victims, and Luke is not.

She licks her mouth and it's delicate as he remembers. His chest ignites. Some of them can be graced with a last wish, he remembers that too. (And, he sees, memory is everything he is granted access to)

To flay her alive warming those very lips wouldn't be bad.

It would be delightful.

"Would you mind?" His tone comes dancing through her mind's haze and he asks pointing to the chair in front. "Please."

She steps close and the sparking badge in her waist is not the only thing he notices. She looks tired. Under her eyes, a dark shade yet weak that, if he wasn't paying such close attention at the detective, it would be effortful to spot it. Her brown hair cascaded through her cheekbones, her chin and then her shoulders drawing a well measured frame with the paint of her face. The blue on her orbs is as strong as the pallor on her skin and that as much feeds his imagination to irk how the red would remarkably contrast with her very white.

She takes the seat and forces a grin. "Thank you." Only a ghostly shape comes out.

He nods. The rings of her voice claw and rake the air and it feels awkward that such timbre graces his awareness. It's the first voice he hears aside from bass growls carrying along miserable aftershave.

He had missed tasting her character.

She waits for him to say something else. He doesn't, and so she pushes.

"You may wanna know why you're here." It wasn't a smooth start, or a strategic one, in that matter. She wasn't going to ask how he was or how comfortable the bed was. She thinks no such thing.

This was Luke Gray and there was nothing silken about the man.

His head tilts aside, bird-like, and his eyes narrow as she recognizes the same mockery he slapped once. Her bone structure wears the depth of his glare and it's rigid as if proving he had seen enough, and that she wasn't any of it.

"Our time together was so poorly matched, I was wondering you'd come sooner or later."

This is my job, she thinks. To take people like you and turn them breakable. There are law enforcements and her shooting precision is a record.

_What you do with unpredictability?_

_What makes you squirm?_

She breathes and then,

"I'm here to help you, Luke."

He strangles a set of rolling eyes.

"I thought my latter insight was profitable enough," he says. "Was it not?"

"We caught him."

"Oh, you did?" He arches an eyebrow, and in any other day he'd be impressed. "And how was that?"

Her shoulders tighten by a millimeter and her chin shows the mistrust he had yet seen on the brunette. There's a fractional second, the wind of a broken hiss, and he _knows_ he just hit a nerve.

"Kurt Bolen is where he needs to be," she says almost mechanical, almost like a programmed report to be given to her superiors or mirrored to one. There's a hinted carelessness that glows as soon as the words leave her soul. Her tone is bathed between hazard, so strongly it may as well have been turning solid — forged into the hardest material. His cuffs are only paper.

She blinks.

This is my job, she thinks.

"Tit for tat didn't work out in the end."

He's mute.

Her hands are on the table, but his study on her hadn't finished yet. The room quakes with an electricity he enjoys beyond the brown and the blue alone. She's the unit that he employs its effects. It's starvation he didn't know until it howled through vital beats.

You're better with sharp teeth waiting for me. You're better with fight to excite me.

"I wouldn't want anyone to get to you, Detective. I don't like sharing. Besides, second time's the charm. Or would it be third?"

There are his raised cheeks trying its way through her. She is consistent. She is expecting such.

This is—

Mistakes. They make a lot of mistakes, her uncle comments. They don't wait us waiting for them. They are meticulous. They know the load every inch of bone can bear and they cut through the cranium. They give wounds and call it _tempera_ and those messages, in more times than others, don't matter the width, always have the same receptor. Still, they are only humans. And humanity, in its finest, seeks for recognition as basic need. Every breath and attack is meant to be noticed, and every work has its trail. From root to modern technology, anonymity is the virus avoided by evolution.

Identity has become the hunger of survival and Luke lives to the fullest.

"You really plan too much for someone with that level of security measures attached to a single chair."

He frowns and she bites what could be satisfaction.

After a while, "you said you can help me." Disbelief throws other than speaks the words.

Her legs cross under the table and her bone retrieves when her rib cage encounters the chrome through the cotton black material.

They are people watching her; watching them.

She moistens her lips.

"We've reached Berlin, by now. Some surnames and nicknames and new data, that's being a real feast in the department. Your family is on disadvantage. Their fortress is ripping apart." She locks an opportunity. "You don't care about Joe Carroll. You don't care about impersonal successions. He came into your house and now half of your family is dead. Your dear mother is running out of aliases and soon the FBI will find her."

There's a past in Anguilla, she tips inwardly. A boat in Venezuela. A bank account in Belize. A mansion in Croatia. There's a loose end in an interrogatory room.

She knows the odds and Luke Gray is a system.

She pauses and says, "Takes us to Joe. Take us to Joe, Luke, and ruin his fortress as well."

You don't change the system. You open it a breach.

His forehead works precisely while listening to the strange pace of her buzz as if unwrapping whatever layer hanged solo between those individuals.

There is no shield, he decides.

"As the Good Samaritan myself," he shows a glimpse. "And where's my reward in that, sweetheart? As you so cogently named it, my interests are a little weakened."

She shrugs her shoulders, a small movement. Barely substantial. Barely something. Barely nothing.

"I promise to take it easy on Lily."

His hands explode across the chrome furniture and he points the length of his index finger denoting the detective.

"I like how my name sounds in your mouth."_ I like how my hips would fit in your thighs._

She ignores it. There's a thud from his lungs, as much as a derogatory remark. It's hysterical.

"Where your reasons are much different than mine? Justice is neatly a matter of interests, Detective. Many of lives by a shred — precious ones you may even say. And yet here you are, following your uncle's steps like a good little officer you so doltishly try to prove. In Joe's net of misdeeds, Ryan is his most successful work. In what position are you in?"

Her breath swerves and déjà vu ganders as a breeze.

He says so slow, "did you kill him?" And an utter amusement towers over his entire body. He thinks he could tremble as her clenched fists do now. He thinks he could do more.

She knows the identity he casts about.

"Well, but first he got to you, didn't he? All those procedures and academic matrix, and still he hunted you no less than he would with an animal. He cut your pretty face and pretty limbs as he would do with a stag, just to expose you as a trophy of the finest meat. Do you still remember the fright? Can you taste it at the back of your throat?"

She does,

And, and  
she can.

She is a paramilitary. She can run a mile in under six minutes. She doesn't fail when her finger touches the trigger. She is trained not to back down. She is trained not to get caught. She is trained not to make mistakes. The cartridge is supposed to penetrate and immobilize.

Though—

She does and she can. But she's not the same as before. Not neglected as before. In some twisted concept of life, you learn from unpredictability.

And this is her job.

He brushes the hectic outcome — his course, he amends — penetrating the mortar, reaching the ceiling and capering on the edge of her pores. A generous wisp of brown hair swings from her ear and there's a smell of fresh scent that makes his eyelids shut briefly. In between his mouth, he flicks his tongue and a keen glare falls to the shape of her collarbone, then to her chest, then to her pulse.

She stills as he challenges her further. She is not taken aback that easily. The system, she requires. She does not submerge that easily. But she has hesitance within a few memories and even fewer faces. He doesn't need much.

He leans forward.

"I hope he wasn't so harsh. Cause I will be. Drop the facade, my dear Detective," he makes a sound and that is a laugh. "Tell me, when it's me, would you like that? Would you shake with my fingers around your neck? Would you close your eyes because my hands are all over your body? Would you scream my name and beg me after? You'll be my favorite piece, Max, and when I'm done with yo—"

He launches backwards and his vision blurs. He hears a _crack_. He hears and feels a crack. He feels cooper too, and the tender spot in his septum clicks and soon swells. Beads of blood go for his upper lip and seep sarcastically with the match of his jumpsuit.

The next thing he sees is that her knuckles are crimson stain, and that she drinks greatness.

_Doesn't that make you squirm knowing you're so close,_

_but not?__  
_

Her breathing emerges and collapses, pounding against the room. Her jaw pierces her temporal bone, but nothing compared to the nails that break the skin of her palm. She's fast; as fast as she is on her feet.

Enough is enough.

He keeps his nape down — is not only measures he reasons, but surprise that sinks and swallows an immediate reaction. There's a mark on his tongue impacted by his incisor. There's something on his chest nibbling the dip of his sternum.

He admits she's like a risen empire.

She does hit like a soldier.

She curves on the table and sends a short glance at the camera instead. The authorities wouldn't interrupt it. Wouldn't interrupt her. Not just yet.

She says with heat, "how about I ask the questions now?"

He spits mouthful and thick wires of blood wetting the floor. His head spins too much for a wide grin. "Not gonna lie..." He mumbles, "The spooky you is quite compelling."

Her fists close harder, one swollen mark of her own, the impact is her own, and his hands raise, surrender.

"But harassing the only potential source you have is not very smart."

The crease on her forehead fades a tad.

"I'll persuade you."

Her hair swung from wild ends and ivory steams and until the roof of his mouth he rendezvoused those melting eyes. There's something new and because he's not the prey he tastes the abyss.

She knows Berlin.

It's an old alias. (Not the first of many, nor the last either) It's a good capital. (Not the first of many, nor the last either) It has pleasant weather and he's conscious it'll not be the last piece. His family reached it soon enough to be one of the best encrypted data he's aware of. There are many faces. There are many surnames and there are many nicknames. Luke had met them all.

Is the same way he's conscious he has to be careful. Study your victim first, get their heart by their allurement and put it in the handle that attaches the blade. No witnesses in any kind.

Mother's the best in what she does.

And she had taught her sons and daughters as her oath.

His clothing reddens and his grin is a crime scene.

"Be my guest."

"Who arranged things at Stratford? What was the plan after that?" She has a calculated pace that creeps noisily when her heels kick the ground. Her back is fully straight. He searches in his mind for the upshot, of things he sees, because he had met it all. The nearest word he can concoct is endurance. If anything so far, he knows she's not a trainee.

"Competence does wonders in this world of ours. The plan was to get out — as always is, right?"

"Qualified people don't dramatize a massacre in a crowded subway station because they want to be in shape. Qualified people don't see killing as a hobby."

He masks a grimace.

"Don't be so rude, Detective. You speak like..." He points to his temple, a circular motion, and his voice is a whisper, almost a blow. "Like I'm a lunatic or something. Killing is not a hobby, whereas we couldn't care more about this growing sensation inside of us. Hobby is applied to dispensable, something that is not congenital but manufactured. The most trained of costumes, but equally invisible. And the desire is perennially prowling, like a dark friend."

"You don't seem the type that gets offended very easily," she tells him defiantly. "And the only friend I see is this cheap euphemism that, unfortunately, never gets old. You can do all the poetry you want, but my concern is what happened there. Five individuals that served as speck on this criss-cross."

Small _taps_ and his wounded septum consents loadings of air to enter his lungs. She stops in front of him and he discovers that's his favorite position. The brunette has clean proportions and the badge itself is a branch to something tickling inside.

"I usually don't, but everything that comes from you is definitely something else, Detective." Then, "what a dangerous tongue you have."

Badly for him, his designs are rules she already perceived. She narrows her eyes and smashes a huff.

"Stop pretending you don't know your position here. You're mere an asset, a broken casualty, locked to mumbles and rust. The intelligentsia you so much claim is found hollow by isolation when you so wholeheartedly believe there's still control in you, in the reason of this metal that erodes until the calcium of your bones. Don't pretend I'm your bait. Don't pretend you're something but blank words."

Her limbs land alone by her side and, nonetheless, he's taken aback by something sharp, something that sparks like fire and something that's blue.

He laughs.

"Oh, yes, casualties. Isn't that my favorite word?! Those media procedures, with their lovely theatrical ideals, painted as "The Massacre", when, truth be told, there's nothing cinematic about it. Not five individuals, Detective. Not poor unfortunate citizens. Not somebody's loved ones. Necessary casualties, necessary connections that lead to where we stand today."

He moves his pulse quickly — loudly, material meeting material — lining up with his nose level and his thumb rubs slightly the harmed spot, the carmine flesh. He doesn't flinch and neither does she.

_What makes you—__What makes you—_

She feels the lump by the dimensions of her waist, and, only that vaguely, the red in her knuckles.

He doesn't laugh this time.

"Those bags under your eyes, don't you think I know is my doing? It's ascending, really. Tons of paperwork to the brave soul who accomplishes along the FBI to play of arresting bad guys and keeping in the drawers the most, most gory details of such cases. It's a shame they never tell the good part. You can't get inside a killer's mind unless you've experienced being one yourself, directly or indirectly. Get to know me and you'll be pleased as how fun I can be. I know my position, Detective. It may not be with a gun or on the other side of this table, but secretly caged by your bosses because the world is wicked like that."

"You're a relic."

"Then some old fashioned way is still appreciated. You need me."

Old fashioned way, her mind repeats. Nobody is imperishable. Give her nine minutes and a computer. Six, if she's inspired. Every code has its lapse or she freely creates one that opens an advantage. You manipulate the puzzler; you bond with its characteristics.

You open it a breach.

"Don't flatter yourself. 'Need' is barely as manufactured, often product of seemingly blasé reactions; human's personal Chimera, and a too strong word when it comes to this place, to the concrete on this walls. And, to be specific, I'd say it's more the other way around. Amateurism isn't a factor. Within the right time you'll be useless, you'll be discarded and the name you cherish so much will be only old tales of something you once tried to conquer. Trust me this, your whole family, or what's left of it, will be FBI's newly caged bad guys."

As a impatient balloon, oxygen comes faster and faster through his nostrils. He doesn't know if it's supposed to ache. He doesn't care. His blue is widely open and it burns. The ashes are on her direction.

I don't play with help. I don't position to no avail. I don't dodge my purpose. I'm slave to no one. I'm not commanded. I break you before you howl to me and hold your spine, your very warmth, your rosy curves, all in the tip of my fingers after I hear my name ripping your throat.

I'm not commanded.

His mouth is a line and Max searches no more.

In the end, in the moment, it doesn't matter yet. She'd keep coming until the dust suspends the man.

A loud thud rises and falls through the square room and the door exits the detective.

His feet tap the chair and it's soon, too soon, for him to miss her fresh scent before the damped air eats it out.

He does.

_Oh, Max_, he thinks and a devious smirk fills him to the core. _Those lips would still be the end of you._


End file.
